Gilbert Fuchs

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Gilbert Fuchs
Personal information
Country represented  Germany
Born 1871
Died 1952

Gilbert Fuchs (b. 1871 in Graz, Austria - d.1952 in Germany) was a German figure skater and world champion in figure skating.

In 1896, he won the first world figure skating championships, held in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1906 he recaptured the title in Munich.

Relations with his constant rival Ulrich Salchow were strained. In 1906, Salchow did not compete in Munich, Fuchs' hometown, because he expected to be judged unfairly. Likewise, Fuchs did not participate in the 1908 Olympics because he felt the judges favored Salchow.

Only once did Fuchs place higher in a competition than Salchow, the 1901 Europeans in Vienna. Fuchs however didn't win, coming second to Gustav Hügel of Austria.)

Fuchs learned figure skating on his own, after learning gymnastics, weightlifting, and stone put. After finishing secondary school, he served in a cavalry regiment, later studying agriculture in Vienna. Still later, he moved to Munich, Bavaria, in Germany and studied forestry. He practiced on Germany's first artificial ice rink, named "Unsöldsche Kunsteisbahn", which opened in 1892 and competed for Munich EV and Germany. He wrote and published: "Theory and Practice of Figure Skating" (German: "Theorie und Praxis des Kunstlaufes am Eise").

Beyond figure skating, Fuchs studied the morphology of the bark beetle (German: Borkenkäfer). In 1929, in his late fifties, he wrote his PhD thesis titled “European timber industry after the war” (German: "Europäische Holzwirtschaft der Nachkriegszeit"). ("War" here referred to the First World War.)

Results

Event 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909
World Championships 1st (*) 3rd 2nd 1st 3rd 2nd
European Championships 3rd 2nd 2nd 2nd
German Championships 1st 1st 1st

(*) injured due to a hunting accident in the high mountains

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